Over the last several years, I've been polishing a mystery novel--The Hero of Gucci Gulch--that I started now several years back. Or, in reality, it has mostly been lying about untouched because I did not know how to go about getting it published. But recently, my friend and cousin Jim Crawford, under the pen name of Mokuri, published a short volume of poems by Li Po via Amazon's CreateSpace. This gave me the idea that I would be far better off using this free service to get my book out to the world than fretting over the difficulty and costs of publishing it by other means.
CreateSpace is a print-on-demand service that sells books when purchased via Amazon.com and by offers them to other booksellers and libraries in the U.S. and Europe. Books can also be made available in Kindle editions. Although you can pay CreateSpace to set up your book for you, it is quite possible to submit a final edited text and cover design of your own making. The cost of doing it yourself is nothing.
Books can be printed in any size, include color illustrations and artwork if desired, and run to any length--short or long.
Royalties can be paid out automatically to your bank account or sent via check. A user dashboard allows you to check in and watch your royalties as they accumulate.
There are many other epublishing services out there, but most that I've found charge fees for even basic services--sometimes astonishly high fees! While my book has not yet been published, it is in the queue for review and may be available in a few days.
I'll announce it here when it appears.
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